Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2001 / iii / Paper 65 / 1

Three distinct motivations are stabilizing the weak scale, improving gauge-coupling unification, and supplying dark matter. Supersymmetric cancellation of quadratic divergences protects the Higgs field from the hierarchy problem; soft supersymmetry breaking near the weak scale keeps the residual corrections modest. The MSSM particle content improves gauge coupling unification under the usual assumptions about intermediate thresholds. Conserved R-parity can make a neutral lightest supersymmetric particle, such as a neutralino, stable and a possible weak-scale dark matter candidate. These are motivations, not guaranteed predictions. If supersymmetry is instead broken at much higher energies, it can still organize string theory and supergravity, and it remains a powerful tool for nonperturbative quantum field theory, as illustrated by Seiberg–Witten theory.

A BPS state saturates a supersymmetry energy bound and is annihilated by some supercharges. For a massive state with one relevant central charge in supersymmetry, normalize the supersymmetry algebra by $\{Q_{\alpha }^A,Q_{\beta }^B\}=2{ϵ}_{\alpha \beta }{ϵ}^{AB}Z$. In its rest frame, appropriate linear combinations of supercharges have anticommutators $2(M+|Z|)$ and $2(M-|Z|)$. Positivity therefore gives the BPS bound in supersymmetry $M\ge |Z|$. At equality, the latter combinations have zero norm and annihilate the state, producing a shortened supermultiplet and preserved supersymmetry. With the alternative convention omitting the factor $2$ in the central-charge anticommutator, the bound reads $M\ge |Z|/2$. The mass is tied to the charge, but this does not imply unconditional stability against decay as parameters vary.

The super-Higgs mechanism is the absorption of the goldstino by the gravitino when local supersymmetry is spontaneously broken. In rigid supersymmetry breaking, the goldstino is a physical massless fermion. In supergravity, its transformation permits a gauge choice removing it; its two degrees of freedom become the longitudinal helicity $\pm \frac{1}{2}$ states of the massive gravitino. The massless gravitino has helicities $\pm \frac{3}{2}$, whereas the massive gravitino has four spin states. This is distinct from the supersymmetric Higgs mechanism, which gives an internal gauge vector a mass and need not break supersymmetry.

Anticommuting-variable dependence alone is not the defining condition: a superfield must carry a specified Super-Poincaré group transformation law. Any appropriately graded function on superspace becomes an unconstrained scalar superfield under coordinate pullback, but an arbitrary collection of coefficients in a Grassmann variable polynomial is not automatically a prescribed supermultiplet. For example, a chiral superfield has $\Phi (y,\theta )=A(y)+\sqrt{2}\theta \psi (y)+{\theta }^{2}F(y)$, with $y^{\mu }=x^{\mu }+i\theta {\sigma }^{\mu }\bar{\theta }$ and ${\bar{D}}_{\dot{\alpha }}\Phi =0$; a vector superfield obeys $V=V^{†}$ and contains a gauge vector, gaugino and auxiliary field in Wess-Zumino gauge. A polynomial with constant component fields can be a special chiral superfield; lack of explicit spacetime dependence alone does not disqualify it. This is superfield covariance is not Grassmann dependence alone.

Specify the gauge group, its gauge group representations and gaugings, a real Kähler potential $K$, a holomorphic superpotential $W$, and a symmetric holomorphic gauge kinetic function $f_{ab}$, with positive kinetic matrices. The latter includes the gauge couplings and theta angles; allowed Abelian Fayet–Iliopoulos terms require constants ${\xi }_a$. For local supersymmetry, also specify the Planck mass; constant Fayet–Iliopoulos terms in conventional N=1 supergravity require a compatible gauged R-symmetry and transformation of $W$. $W$ and $f$ are holomorphic; $K$ generally is not. Radiative corrections generally change $K$. The Wilsonian effective action obeys superpotential non-renormalization perturbatively, although physical couplings run through field normalization and nonperturbative corrections can change $W$. The gauge kinetic function does receive corrections while remaining holomorphic; its perturbative Wilsonian running has one-loop exactness of the holomorphic gauge kinetic function, not all-order constancy of the physical gauge coupling.